Latest news with #Kagan
Newsweek
6 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
Supreme Court's Peacemaker Speaks Out—'Scary Stuff'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan has spoken out about the spike in threats against judges, calling it "scary stuff." Judges "just need to do what they are obligated to do, which is to do law in the best way they know how to do, make independent, reasoned judgments based on precedent, based on other law, to not be inhibited by any of these threats," Kagan said at a judiciary conference on Thursday, according to The Washington Post. Newsweek contacted Kagan for further comment via an email to a Supreme Court spokesperson. Associate Justice Elena Kagan stands during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2021. Associate Justice Elena Kagan stands during a group photo of the Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2021. Erin Schaff/Pool-Getty Images Why It Matters Threats against judges are on the rise, at a time when President Donald Trump and his allies have railed against judges who have blocked parts of Trump's agenda, including calling for some to be impeached. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in March issued a rare statement rejecting calls for impeaching judges. The U.S. Marshals Service investigated threats against 197 judges between March and late May this year—more than double the number of judges threatened in the previous five months, The Washington Post has reported. What To Know Kagan also said that the willingness of some to flout judicial rulings "is just not the way the system works." She said not specifically mention Trump, but said the biggest offenders were government officials, the Post reported. Kagan, who is part of the court's liberal wing, joined her liberal colleagues in criticizing the court's emergency rulings in favor of the Trump administration. But in several cases on the court's regular docket, she sided with the court's more conservative justices. She was in the majority in 83 percent of all cases—the fourth most frequently of the nine justices—and in 70 percent of nonunanimous cases in the 2024-25 term, according to SCOTUSblog's Stat Pack. "I think she tries to find common ground when she can," constitutional law professor Harold Krent said about Kagan on a recent episode of the Bloomberg Law podcast. "I think it is perhaps a positive institutional development, as she is, at least in my view, in some of her decisions, trying to, you know, establish that there is common ground amongst the so-called conservative and so-called liberal justices." What People Are Saying Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, in part, during a judges' conference in Puerto Rico in May: "The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity." She added: "The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government. And they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law." Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned last month that words from elected officials could lead to threats or acts of violence from others, saying: "It becomes wrapped up in the political dispute that a judge who's doing his or her job is part of the problem. And the danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work. So I think the political people on both sides of the aisle need to keep that in mind." Trump said during a speech at a Michigan rally marking his first 100 days on office: "We cannot allow a handful of communist radical left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States. Judges are trying to take away the power given to the president to keep our country safe and it's not a good thing." What's Next Law enforcement continues to track and respond to threats against judges.
The Hill
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Kagan: Judicial orders ‘need to be respected'
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday that threats against judges should stop and emphasized that judicial orders 'need to be respected.' 'That's just not the way our system works, not the way rule of law in this country works. That's true for the Supreme Court, and it's also true for every district court. Unless and until an appellate court or the Supreme Court says otherwise, judicial orders are judicial orders and need to be respected,' Kagan said at a judicial conference in Monterey, Calif., according to multiple outlets. Kagan, one of the three liberal jurists on the nation's highest court, advised judges not to be 'aggravated or maddened' by the criticism they face over their rulings. 'The response to perceived lawlessness of any kind is law, and the way an independent judiciary should counter assaults on an independent judiciary is to act in the sorts of ways that judges are required to act,' the associate Supreme Court justice said. President Trump, administration officials and their allies have slammed judges as unfair and at times 'radical' when courts would not rule in their favor, particularly on the topic of immigration. Trump argued in May that the judge who ruled to pause the deportation of Venezuelan migrants under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act should be 'IMPEACHED!!!' Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, in a rare statement, rebuked the president. 'For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,' Roberts said. 'The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,' Roberts added. The U.S. Marshals Service has warned some federal judges earlier this year about an increase in threats against them. 'Judges are fair game for all kinds of criticism, strong criticism, pointed criticism, but vilifying judges in that way is a step beyond and ought to be understood as such,' Kagan said on Thursday.
Politico
6 days ago
- Politics
- Politico
Without naming Trump, Elena Kagan says court orders ‘need to be respected'
Kagan's tone was less urgent than Jackson's, though she raised many of the same concerns, including an increasing number of threats of violence aimed at judges. Kagan lamented the protests that erupted outside the homes of conservative justices' homes following POLITICO's 2022 report on the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning the federal constitutional right to abortion. She mentioned that some of her colleagues have children and that Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home was targeted by an unsuccessful assassin during the same period. 'That is scary stuff,' Kagan said. Kagan's most significant criticism of the court she serves on was directed at its handling of cases on the emergency docket, sometimes referred to as the shadow docket by critics. That docket has received a flood of appeals from the Trump administration in the first six months of Trump's second term. Trump has won the vast majority of them, as the Supreme Court has overturned district court orders and allowed the administration to mass-fire federal employees, cancel federal grants, exclude transgender people from the military and enact other sweeping parts of Trump's agenda. Kagan spoke one day after she sharply dissented from one such emergency-docket decision: a ruling allowing Trump to fire Biden-appointed consumer safety regulators despite a federal law saying they can only be dismissed due to misconduct or inability to serve. Kagan offered a veiled critique of her conservative colleagues' approach, suggesting they 'understand interference in an elected president's ability to execute his agenda as sort of automatically irreparable harm' that entitles the administration to emergency relief from the high court. 'I think we're going to continue to have disagreements about that,' she said. But Kagan's main complaint about the emergency docket was that the high court's rulings are often not explained much and sometimes not explained at all, leaving lower courts and the public to guess at the court's rationale. 'That's not the right way to approach it,' she said. 'As we have done more and more on this emergency docket, there comes a real responsibility that I think we didn't recognize when we first started down this road to explain things better.' Kagan said she is often disappointed on the current court by finding herself 'on the losing end with two fairly predictable women.' 'I don't enjoy that. I find it frustrating. I find it disappointing. I find it sometimes even maddening,' she said. 'It's just a fact of the matter that this sometimes happens on cases that I care strongly about. … You just sort of have to turn a page.'
6 days ago
- Politics
Justice Elena Kagan criticizes pro-Trump rulings, court's lack of explanation
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on Thursday publicly chided her conservative colleagues for deciding -- at least temporarily -- nearly a dozen consequential disputes over President Donald Trump's overhaul of the federal government without fulsome hearing or debate and often with little public explanation. "My own view is: be cautious," Kagan told a conference of federal judges from the Ninth Circuit about a recent wave of rulings on the so-called emergency docket. The cases in question -- involving funding freezes, federal worker layoffs and firing of members of independent agencies -- reached the court over the past six months when the justices were asked for snap judgments on the decisions of a lower court, without extensive briefing or oral argument, in an effort to protect a party from alleged imminent irreparable harm. In nearly every case, the court's conservative majority has sided with the Trump administration. Most recently on Wednesday, it allowed the president to terminate three Democrat-appointed members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The court's order offered a three-sentence explanation. "Courts are supposed to explain things, to litigants, to the public generally," Kagan said. "As we have done more and more on the emergency docket, there becomes a real responsibility to explain things better." The justice was cautious in addressing her peers, but she did suggest that elements of "good decision making" were lacking in many recent emergency rulings. "We have standards for that," she said. "I think we should apply those standards with care." Kagan pointed to the court's decision last week allowing Trump to move forward with a massive restructuring of the Department of Education, including sweeping staff reductions. The court's majority did not explain its decision. "A casual observer might think we said the president has the authority to dismantle [the agency]…. That [question] wasn't even before us," she said. "It puts the court in a very difficult situation." Kagan also lamented the proliferation of separate opinions across the bench -- when many of her colleagues write their own concurring opinions in major cases instead of letting the majority opinion speak for itself. She said she fears too many writers -- "just one or two guys trying to tell you they would have written it differently" -- in each case "dilutes" the message of the court. "My view is the court has many members, but it is an institution," she said. "It is a court. It speaks best when it speaks as a court, rather than a place when nine people get together and write individually." As for the frequent occasions in which Kagan is in dissent vis-à-vis the six-justice conservative majority, she said, "I don't enjoy that. I find it frustrating.I find it disappointing. I find it sometimes maddening." "How do I deal with that?" she asked. "Have to turn a page… You lose one day, then you continue to engage the next day."
CNN
6 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Justice Kagan stresses the need for government officials to obey court orders
Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday that one of the major challenges facing the federal judiciary today is the possibility of government officials defying court orders. The comments from Kagan, one of three liberal members on the high court, come as the Trump administration has been accused of flouting orders from lower courts. 'This idea that litigants, and most especially here I'm talking about government officials, needn't obey the dictates of courts. Needn't obey court orders. And you know that just is not the way our system works, not the way rule of law in this country works,' Kagan said during a wide-ranging conversation before an audience of judges and lawyers at the 9th US Circuit Judicial Conference as she discussed several things she thought presented a challenge to the nation's federal court system. She continued: 'And that's true for the Supreme Court, and it's also true for every district court, unless and until an appellate court or the Supreme Court says otherwise — that judicial orders are judicial orders and need to be respected.' Among the other issues Kagan said are facing her colleagues in the judiciary are threats to their personal safety and the way people talk about judges in the US. She pointed to a rare statement Chief Justice John Roberts issued earlier this year after President Donald Trump called for judges who ruled against him to be impeached. 'Judges are fair game for all kinds of criticism: strong criticism, pointed criticism. But vilifying judges in that way is a step beyond and ought to be understood as such,' Kagan said at the event in Monterey, California. The administration has been accused of skirting court orders in a range of cases, but judges have largely avoided pursuing contempt proceedings against officials. The issue reached new heights last month after a fired Justice Department lawyer who worked on immigration cases filed a whistleblower complaint that claimed a top DOJ official crudely told others in the department to ignore court orders before a controversial immigration enforcement situation in March. Emil Bove, the official accused of making the comments, has denied the allegations. The US Senate is currently considering whether to confirm him to a lifetime appointment on a Philadelphia-based federal appeals court.
